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Technology

May 12, 2014

A couple of Sundays ago I had a crisis. The crisis began with a phone call at 5:30 a.m. (Notice: unless it is a dire emergency, do not ever call me at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning. More than likely I’ve been up until late-thirty working on a sermon.) Anyway, the person calling at that time of the morning to tell me they might not be at church because they had not gotten enough sleep messed up my phone.

Something happened. Maybe I hit the wrong button in my stupor. Maybe there was a glitch in the phone’s software. Who knows? At any rate, when the phone blasted forth its chime at the predetermined time to wake me, I hit the snooze button. After all, my sleep had been interrupted at 5:30. Eight minutes later the chime sounded again. I tried to turn it off. I couldn’t. The phone was locked up.

As I prepared for the day, every eight minutes the chime sounded. I couldn’t turn it off. On top of that I couldn’t make a call. I couldn’t receive a call. The phone was useless except for sounding a chime every eight minutes.

Before the worship service began, as I was placing my sermon notes on the pulpit a high school senior walked by. I told him my problem. He picked up my phone, punched it with his finger a few times, handed it back to me with the words, spoken in a tone that recognized my technological deficiencies, “All you have to do is punch the home key three times.”

“All you have to do is punch the home key three times?” Let me tell you about phones, you arrogrant teenager. I’ll tell you about phones.

As a child the phone number we had was CR 0120. That was it: CR 0120. The phone was on a stand in the central hallway at my grandparent’s house. When someone was calling our house there was two short rings followed by one long ring. We only answered when there was two short rings followed by one long ring. Any other combination was an indication that one of the other five persons on our party-line was being called.

Later, when I was a bit older, the number was changed to CR-2-0120. We were no longer on a party-line. It was our number exclusively. No one could listen in. We had arrived. But we were still limited in our conversations to that central hallway. Finally, my grandfather purchased a twenty-five foot cord to the handset. Now we could actually go into one of the rooms off the hallway, close the door, and have a bit of privacy. Amazing.

At my second church, we had a phone right out of Mayberry. The phone was on the wall and you actually had to crank a handle to notify Ms. Essie at central you wanted to make a call. It was a fifty-six person party line. When Ohio friends called us every day for two weeks while we were on vacation they got charged for the call even though we never answered. After all, Ms. Effie answered. And then there was the time we had a special meeting at my church to raise money to pay the Social Security for Ms. Effie.

So, listen Mr. Teenager, with all your techno knowledge about punching the home key three times, you don’t know squat about phones.

April 23, 2014

This blog is taken from a column I write for the local paper that will be published today.

Okay, I’m fully aware that the vast majority of the folks who read these weekly epistles are above the age of …. Well, above the age of you-know-what. I don’t want to embarrass you here. And with the knowledge that the majority of the folks who read these columns are above that age, I’m also aware that many of you don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on when the TV commentator, anchor person, or personality, says, “Spoiler alert.”

Let me, if you will, bring you into the Twenty-first century. This century is an age of instant communication. Everyone in the world can communicate with every other person in the world immediately through the miracle of the Smartphone. Do you have one? If not, get one. Your grandchild can show you how to use it. Now with that Smartphone you can instantly let everyone know whatever you want the world to know. For instance, you could immediately alert all the family via your smartphone. “I’m at Cousin Jennifer’s house. She’s preparing the family reunion dinner. Don’t eat the dressing!!”

You see, that’s a spoiler. You’ve spoiled the surprise of all the family members, after having consumed Cousin Jennifer’s dressing, having to make recurrent visits to the necessary room. That’s a spoiler. It’s a warning of what is to come.

There have been times in my life when I could have used a spoiler. I could have used a spoiler when I was preparing to ask Linda Simpson to the Junior-Senior Dance. Someone, you would have thought, would have presented me with a spoiler that proclaimed to me what Linda Simpson thought of me. A spoiler alert in that particular case would have reduced my sense of consternation when Linda Simpson, having heard me ask, “Would you go to the Junior-Senior Dance with me?”, gazed at me for a moment and then started giggling.

I could have used a spoiler alert when, in my sophomore years in college, I pursued Ellen Goodrich. If we’d had smartphones back then, I would hope one of my friends would have tweeted me, “Do you have any appreciation for the initials GLBT?”

Spoiler Alerts can be useful. Spoiler alerts can also be unappreciated, considered intrusive, in bad taste, and just counter productive. Here’s a case in point.

A couple of weeks ago, on the HBO TV series “Game of Thornes”, the evil, immoral, self-centered, totally egotistical king Joffery Baratheon was poisoned. He died. No one mourned his dying. He was the north end of a south bound horse. But no one saw it coming. No one, that is, but the folks on the West Coast. You see, the people on the East Coast, having seen the episode before the folks on the West Coast started going on Twitter and Facebook and alerting the world that King Joffery had been poisoned. What a bummer for the people in a later time zone

Kathy Griffin, the television stand-up comic, once said we shouldn’t talk about people’s shortcomings to their face. We should talk about the shortcomings behind their back. She concluded, “It’s manners.” It’s just manners to not send out a spoiler alert to folks who might be waiting for the discovery.

Spoiler Alerts. Gracious. We certainly could live without them. But, Spoiler Alerts are not a part of our culture. So, in that spirit here it is:

Spoiler Alert. My sermon this Sunday will be a lot better than the one at First Church.

January 20, 2014

It happened a hundred years ago this past Saturday. On January 18, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, exchanged greeting is a transatlantic radio broadcast. It was an amazing day. It was historic. For the first time in the history of humankind the heads of two nations spoke directly to each other over the airways. It was a marvelous accomplishment on the road of scientific accomplishment. Who could have imagined where this technology would go from there?

My mind is filled with happy memories as I think back over my having been witness to this wondrous development. The evolvement of this communication technology has defined my life in many ways.

It was but a mere forty years or so following the King’s and President’s “Hello” that I first sat before this large box in our den. As I sat there I watched a small glass screen on which appeared the image of humans talking, dancing, playing musical instruments, joking and laughing, on my daddy’s newest toy, the television. Oh, how I remember that television. I remember the many trips to the roof where I twisted the big antenna to the direction of my dad. “A little more, just a little more, one more time. Okay, that’s …. Hold on, I think you went too far.” Eventually, the antenna was adjusted to the output of the television station’s signal and we’d all gather in the den to be entertained.

I don’t know how many years later it was, but the day came when Daddy got a new toy. It was, again, a large box. And the large box was a stereo record player. Daddy bought all these stereo records. Once again, it was my task to adjust the thing. He’d put a record on, go sit on the sofa where he’d instruct me to start playing the record. “A little more on the right speaker,” he’d instruct. I’d twist the dial slowly. “Okay, hold it,” he say as the two of us listened to the trumpets coming from the right speaker and the violins from the left. For Daddy it was heaven. For me it was a never-ending task of dial twisting.

In the years following would come the eight-track cassette. Oh, how Daddy loved the eight-track. Then came those small cassettes. Daddy had thousands of them, I mean that literally; he had thousands of them.

We’ve come a long way since that first transatlantic exchange. This morning I paid my phone bill. I did it by taking out my cell phone and accessing my bank account. Once there I clicked on the phone company, typed in the correct amount and clicked “pay.” Oh, my goodness, Daddy would have been totally astounded.

I wish Daddy had been there the other day when, in a distant city, I sat in a lobby waiting an appointment. I took out the same cell phone and watched a movie, and I didn’t have to adjust the antenna. How far we’ve come.

The technology developed over the last hundred years has revolutionized our world. Certainly, it has mine.

Tuesday, Edna, a high school classmate called. Someone gave her my phone number. Edna told me she heard I was now a widower. Then Edna told me she was a widow. Edna not so tactfully suggested that we should get together sometime. On Wednesday, Edna texted me a “selfie.”

November 04, 2013

In my old age I’ve become somewhat eccentric. I am convinced the condition is born of my experience in life, the accumulated knowledge of what is relevant and what is not, all coupled with the fact that as age progresses priorities are rearranged. I also must insist that my confession of being eccentric is not in any manner a validation of the accusations my children whisper into the ears of my grandchildren.

Being eccentric, a few years ago I got rid of my television. This surprising action came from the realization that just about every program I want to watch on television I can watch online. I can’t watch it on the day it’s available for those of you still affixed to the provincial way of doing things. Sometimes I have to wait a full twenty-four hours after you see the program before I can see it. But I can watch it.

There’s an advantage to this odd way of viewing television programs. If I’m watching the program and fall asleep, something I do more often now, I can just hit refresh when I wake up in the morning and the program’s available again. If I don’t like the program I have two options. I can turn the program off, but unlike normal television viewers, I can also make a comment to the producers about what I thought of their effort. What a world!

My eccentric viewing of television programs also gives me the advantage of seeing programs that are no longer available over the airways. For instance, I surfed around the web recently and found an old Discovery Channel reality program. It’s called “Auction Kings.” What initially attracted my attention was the program centers around an auction house in greater Atlanta. I pass by that auction house often going to and from frequent visits to a couple of grandchildren.

It’s astounding what people bring in to auction. There’s a wide variety, from a stuffed fish to a boat, from a 1890s haunted house Iron Maiden Torture Device to furniture for a dollhouse, from a ship’s telegraph to a jukebox, from a 1947 fire engine to a World War II jeep restored by Richard Petty. It’s amazing.

I was also intrigued at some of the reasons people auction family heirlooms. The owner of the auction house asks the lady why she wants to sell the precious family heirloom her mother left her in the will. “Well,” she says, “I’m going to use the money to take a cruise.” Somehow, I don’t think that’s what her mother had in mind with her bequest.

This program did get me thinking. There’s that old Buddha statue my mother left me. It was given to her by her aunt. There’s that wood plane from my Dad’s workshop. There’s the neck scarf from my old Cub Scout days. They could be worth something.

And then it hit me. I’ve got all these manuscripts of forty years of preaching. I’ve got a few dozen audio tapes of me preaching. And, in fact, I’ve got a few videos of my pulpit talents. So, I thought that maybe I should put them up for auction.

Then I watched another episode of the program. They offered this precious item for bids. Everyone stared at the auctioneer. “Who’ll open the bids for me?” he asked. No one responded. Then I had visions of church members sleeping through sermons.

October 07, 2013

This past Sunday, I used an illustration in the sermon about my sixteen-year-old granddaugher who since her birth the accumulative knowledge of the human race has increased by 97%. Think about that folks. It’s an astounding statistic. Allow me to put this into perspective.

Buckminister Fuller noted that until 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every century. But, by the time I was in high school knowledge was doubling every twenty-five years. Wow! But hold on. As Paul Harvey was prone to say, “There’s more to the story.” Today, you discover that human knowledge is doubling every thirteen months. And hold on to your hats! Studies show that with the build out of the internet human knowledge will soon double at the rate of once every twelve hours.

Holey Moley! Let’s pause here to let this tired old parson lean back in his chair, take a deep breath and relax. It’s the only alternative to becoming a relic before this blog is finished.

Things are happening at an unbelievable pace. Have you heard of Wikipedia? It’s an online encyclopedia, where hundreds of thousands of volunteers input data to compose and edit each other’s offerings into an infinite variety of subject matters. People who don’t know each other are contributing to the advancement of knowledge by holding each other to standards and advancing the knowledge of the human race. It’s called collaboration; and in the internet circles it’s working.

Most of what we do on the internet today is made possible not be some highly paid software engineer or developer in the Silicon Valley. Nope, most of what we do on the internet is made available by people who believe in open sourcing. That is, they believe the internet should be free and provide software free of charge to enhance its capabilities.

Here’s an example: Ever go to a website, maybe to purchase a ticket for an upcoming concert? Okay, admittedly some of the people who read this are of a more advanced age than I. Consequently, they haven’t gone to such a site. I’ll have to ask them to trust me. So, if you got to such a site, let’s say to purchase tickets for a Beyonce Concert -- What? You don’t know who Beyonce is? -- OMG, can we pause for a moment of prayer? You'e much older than I thought. Anyway, if you know who Beyonce is, and want to purchase a ticket for her concert, at the end of the process you’ll encounter a little box that says, “We need you to prove you’re human.” Then you have to type in the fuzzy letters you see on the screen.

Here’s the neat thing. When you retype those letters, what you’re actually retying is portions of words that have been scanned from books which the computer could not read because the ink fades with age. You’re telling the computer what the book says. Bingo! Collaboration to double knowledge.

In Boston, people can go online to adopt a fire hydrant. Yep, that’s what I said, a fire hydrant. When they adopt the fire hydrant they can name it. So when it snows and you’ve adopted Fred the Fire Hydrant, it’s your job to shovel the snow away from the hydrant so the fire department can find Fred. Human collobration.

It makes one hope and pray some smart kid will develop an app that will allow us to push a button on our smartphone that makes our Congressional representatives behave like adults.

April 29, 2013

So,
here's the thing. I was pursuing the Huffington Post last week, and,
lo and behold, there was an article about my baby boy, the high
school English teacher.

That
kid has this crazy idea that even though the classroom has looked the
same since the eighteenth century there's no reason it should not
change. Basically, he putting forth the idea that education should
enter the 21st Century.

You
decide. Read the article. And be sure to click on the link reading “A
Revolutionary Classroom” contained in the article to see a video
with a virtual presentation of his ideas.

Full
disclosure: The link also lets you contribute to making his ideas a
reality. But don't let that stop you form clicking the link. You can
help his a lot if you forward the article to someone you think might
be interested in his concepts.

January 14, 2013

A
week never goes by without me being remindd how much this world has
changed in my lifteime. Gracious, when I first got my driver's
license turn-blinkers were a new thing, automaitc transmission was a
luxury option, and there were only a few hundred miles of interstate
highways in the whole country.

Now
that I think on it, if I'd been writing this back then, I
wouldn't do so on this laptop; I wouldn't even be doing so with a
ballpoint pen, neither of those were available. (Are you old enough
to remember those archaic fountain pens?)

Back
then, when I wanted to deposit my check, I went to the bank, a bank
where the teller knew my name and where I didn't have to produce
identification to retrieve my own money because that teller
identified me. She knew I was Charlie's little boy. (I bet if I saw
her today she'd still identify me as Charlie's little boy.) Back then
I couldn't take a picture of my paycheck on my smartphone then click
on “Deposit” and instantly receive a message “Deposit
Successful.” In fact, back then I actually used checks; I didn't
bank online. There was no online.

When
I got my driver's license, I didn't drive to school. When I told my
Daddy I needed a car so I could drive to school, he told me he agreed
and I should get a job to earn enough money to buy one. Truth is, I
really didn't mind riding the school bus, everybody did. What I hated
was toting those school books to the bus stop a half mile away from
home. Today, I'm still toting books around. In fact, I always carry
hundreds of thousands of them. I was born too long ago to understand
how it works, but all those books are now on my digital reader and/or
smart phone.

At
this point in this offering you should be grasping the fact this old parson embraces technology. I love it. I love it so much I no longer
have a television. I have discovered I can watch ninety percent of the TV programs I like to watch on one of my technological devices. You, dear relic,
have to watch your favorite program at home the night it's scheduled.
I watch it when I want wherever I am. I can even watch a movie while
devouring gourmet delights at the Waffle House.

There
is one relic from that ancient age in which I was raised I do miss. I
miss maps, paper maps. I miss trying to fold them back up. I miss
trying to find the spot I'm currently occupying on the paper in order
to devise a route to that place I hope to occupy. Now, the Google
Maps and the GPS devices I use today are really great. My GPS tells
me how to get from here to there, what time I'm going to get there,
how fast I'm going, and even beeps when I come within range of a
traffic video camera. My phone is a little more simple, but it, too,
can show me on a map where I am at the current time. It can mark a
route on the screen. Amazing!

But
all these technological map devices have one draw back. Everyone of
them shows me being at the center of everything. And neither I nor
you, dear reader, are the center of all things.

November 22, 2012

The
season for counting our blessings has arrived. It's good this time of
year rolls around. Truth is, we don't count those blessings and we don't
give thanks for them without this annual time set apart. The shame of
it is we have more to be thankful for in these present days than any
time before.

Gracious how the world has changed in the last twenty-five years. My daddy would never believe it.

The
other night I was traveling down the highway, just enjoying the
journey, not in too much of a hurry to get to my destination. But I was
hungry. I didn't really know where I was; I mean I knew I was between
here and there and would soon arrive at there if I remained on this
particular highway. But I didn't know where I was in terms of relieving
the hunger pangs now wrestling in my stomach. No problem in this day and
age.

I
pulled out my smart phone, held the menu button down then said aloud,
“Food.” Within a few seconds the phone spoke to me, “I found fifteen
restaurants; thirteen of them are fairly close to you.” Glancing down at
the phone, I touched the name of one of those restaurants. A map to the
establishment appeared on the screen. So in this season I'm giving
thanks I can always know how to get where I need to be.

Speaking
of that phone, I called my grandson in Connecticut the other evening.
He's a few months short of being five. After speaking to my son for a
few moments he then called the grandchild, informing him I was on the
phone. The grandson took the phone, looked at the screen and said, “He
must have hung up.” Most of the time when I talk with him and his
brother we do it via a video call. When he didn't see my face he assumed
I wasn't there any longer. I'm giving thanks today that my
grandchildren, even when we live a thousand miles apart, still know what
I look like.

I'm
thankful today the rising generation is not wasting their lives away on
video games. They may be playing them non-stop, but they're not wasting
their lives. Ever heard of Adrien Treville? He, a university professor,
was frustrated at the slow place of solving some of the mysteries of
AIDS and HIV. The university computers had been working on the problem
for years with no positive results. He put the problem online in a video
game format. Within days 300,000 kids were working on the mystery. It
has something to do with the way protein molecules are folded. One of
the top players was a ninth grader named Michael Tate. He and other
players solved the molecule mystery within three weeks. Look at the
power of this technology, not just a few scientists working on the
problem but hundreds of thousands of kids.

I'm
thankful for this age where, wearable, external robotic skeletons are
making it possible for paraplegics to walk, where we are finding ways to
control machines with our minds, and where I can watch, live, my grand
kids in another city or state perform in their dance recital.

And
I'm so very thankful it will be the ethics and values my generation
teaches that will allow them to use this new technology for the common
good and the betterment of all humankind.

January 15, 2012

November 17, 2011

The day began well for the parson. He rose before the sun, showered and shaved, popped his pills, all his pills have kept his heart ticking since the surgery, dressed and then called out to Charlie Brown, his faithful canine companion. Together they bounded down the front steps and, with an agility that betrayed the parson's age, headed toward the car.

Ten minutes later the parson and Charlie Brown were making their daily trek around the outskirts of the Quik Trip, America's Premiere Convenience (and in this case truck stop) Store. After their circumnavigation of the facility, Charlie Brown jumped onto the backseat of the car and assumed his waiting position while the parson headed inside to purchase his daily dose of cappuccino. In a few moments the parson jumped back in the car and the two headed back to the house.

Once there the computer was retrieved from the study. They headed toward the church. There the parson began working with focused attention on the matters at hand. He made notes on how he wanted to approach Sunday's sermon. He made phone calls to several members and answered a phone call from someone who wanted to interest him in joining an effort to make Christians of the Jews. The parson responded that as soon as he and his members learned to act like Christians he'd give the fellow a return call.

Two-thirds through the morning, the couple showed up for their scheduled counseling session. It was a breakthrough time. Both of them came to a better understanding of the issues that were stumbling blocks to their relationship. They left with a new commitment and a promise they'd keep coming back for a while.

When the left the parson and Charlie Brown headed back to the house. Once there the parson did not deviate from his dogged pursuit of accomplishing the goals for the day. He worked tirelessly and without distraction on the bulletin for the Sunday morning service. It was almost completed around 2:00. The parson was feeling good. He'd been so focused he'd forgotten lunch. But he didn't want to break. This was a good day. Things were happening.

And then it happened. The Devil appeared. The Devil at 2:23 in the afternoon arrived at the parson's house. He drove up in a United Parcel Service truck. He approached the parson's door in a UPS person's uniform. He handed the parson a package. The parson signed the little device the Devil held out. The Devil turned and walked away. Wait, was he chuckling?

The parson returned inside. He opened the package. It was the parson's new Kindle Fire. The chuckle of the Devil in the UPS uniform echoed in the parson's mind.

He sat. He unpacked the device. He plugged it in and let it charge while he set upon a quest to discover the way to utilize all it's functions without having to call any of his grandchildren. He browsed the various magazines available. He looked through the library. He explored the “Cloud” feature where he could store music. The device was so easy to use. Without realizing how competent he was with his new found technical toy, the parson was soon listening to Brandi Carlile serenade him through the earphones with her composition “Dreams.” And the parson was caught up in the dream. Before he knew it he had downloaded Robert Price's The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man, How Reliable Is the Christian Tradition.

Charlie Brown interrupted the parson's reading with a bark at the front door. The parson rose and let Charlie Brown outside. As he started to close the door it seemed like he could hear once again the chuckle of the Devil dressed in a UPS uniform. He ignored it, plopped himself on the sofa and began reading once again as the earphones now eased his day with the sound of Linda Ronstadt's For Sentimental Reasons album. The parson continued reading until Charlie Brown barked again.

He rose and opened the door for Charlie Brown. There it was again: that distinctive sound of the Devil in the UPS uniform chuckling. The parson looked over at the clock. “Oh, my goodness, Charlie Brown,” he said. “It's suppertime. Where did the time go.” Again that devilish chuckle sounded in his head. “Come on, I'll get you something to eat.” The parson fed Charlie Brown and then fed his Charlie Brown's three wild feline friends who wandered out of the woods every day about this time and who, occasionally, could be seen cuddled against Charlie Brown's tummy as he napped in the afternoon sun.

The parson then fixed some food for himself and ate it as he skimmed through the Kindle Fire's User Guide. He'd grown tired of that exercise about the time he finished eating. The dishes were stacked in the sink. He filled the sink with water and decided to wait a while to wash them. He wanted to check out the video feature.

The parson noted there were some free videos because he was an Amazon Prime Member. He looked through the video library. Interesting. Suddenly the voice of the Devil in the UPS uniform entered the parson's abode. He whispered in the parson's ear. “You really ought to check to see in the quality of those videos is as good as advertised.” That sounded reasonable.

The parson noted that one of the free movies was “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” He'd seen the movie twice already. Even though it was one of his favorite movies in a while he noticed that it was over two hours long. He had to write a column for the local newspaper and a blog. “You spent a lot of money on this device,” said the voice. “You should check these videos out.”

The parson watched Noomi Rapace portray Lisbeth Salander in her struggle from victim to protagonist. He enjoyed every minute of it as for the third time he followed the plot to the same conclusion as was there the two other times he'd seen the movie and the time he read the book. When the movie was concluded, the parson had decided he liked his Kindle Fire.

He looked up at the clock. It was 11:30. Oh gracious, he had to get to work. And then that voice whispered again, “How do you know “The Girl Who Played With Fire” is as good a quality as the other one.

The parson decided there was no reason he had to write a blog every day.

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